News

Apple’s just-opened 4th Street (N. Calif.) store, is designed so that the new sidewalk, store window panels and inside stone floor tiles all are dimensioned and positioned to present a symmetrical appearance.

subtect feels "This is a really terrible drawing. if you draw the room volume as a single point perspective, then follow through with the tile and sidewalk lines for fuck sake. The end gaps between the glazing and the storefront perimeter are different widths." while tagalong believes "the cube is actually quite the disappointment, the rear window is a conventional rear window, the only glass that wraps is the exterior so it's all just fake aesthetics...probably started off with the idea for wrap around visibility but at some point got VE'd out due to not being able to reconcile the structural C column with visibility," However, John Gachich thinks this is just "Another example of architects designing for architects. Looking for some kind of peer recognition, never thinking that the average Joe looking to buy an iPad could not care less whether this line lines up with the one on the opposite wall and continues  the contextual concept of interior extending through the fenestration to the exterior suggesting infinite combinations of juxtapositioning dissimilar elements in space to achieve aforementioned contextual stability."

A sixteen-year-old Austin Hay of Santa Rosa, Calif., has been sleeping in a work-in-progress 130 square foot "tiny home" in his parents' backyard for months. To which bora writes "I not only was very impressed by his architectural understandings and vision but also was amazed by his attitude. Nice little work in process job."

In preparation for construction of a new Denton Corker Marshall designed visitors' centre 2.5km away the the British government is preparing to close the road around [Stonehenge], restoring the stones' heathland setting. In the new design, hundreds of thousands of sightseers will reach the site via the centre on a lightweight transit system. Robert Bevan the writer for the Australian suggested "Get set for druids in golf buggies at Stonehenge". Liebchen  commented "SANAA called...they want their randomly-placed pencil columns and thin metal roof back..." but Orhan Ayyüce replied "'pencil columns and thin roofs' are all the rage! sure to flood classrooms and renderings this year... "

morality degree zero quipped that "This should be properly named 'Jencks Good Old Boy pre Retirement CandyAss Award' let's call spade a spade. Jencks stop setting architecture backward" in reference to the news that American architect Eric Owen Moss will receive the 2011 Jencks Award, an annual accolade recognising major international contributions to the theory and practice of architecture.

Also don't miss Ai Weiwei's The City: Beijing, wherein he writes "Beijing tells foreigners that they can understand the city, that we have the same sort of buildings: theBird’s Nest, the CCTV tower. Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights." Later in the text reflecting on his incarceration earlier this year he describes the prototypical space of incareration "The strongest character of those spaces is that they’re completely cut off from your memory or anything you’re familiar with. You’re in total isolation. And you don’t know how long you’re going to be there, but you truly believe they can do anything to you. There’s no way to even question it. You’re not protected by anything."

Schools/School Blogs
Lian points out the new Pentagram designed website for the GSD.

Architectural Digest named Pratt Institute among the top 10 colleges nationwide with the best architecture. According to Architectural Digest, Pratt was featured for its contemporary architecture including Steven Holl's 2005 addition to Higgins Hall and its Leo J. Pantas residence hall designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill as well as for the "dozens of campus structures built between 1885 and World War II that put Pratt on the National Register of Historic Places."

Events

If you are in San Francisco check out the Reclaim Market Street! Exhibition opening party hosted opening on, September 06, 2011. Hosted by San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association (SPUR) the exhibition provides context for a series of pilot projects by highlighting the many ways in which cities, nationally and internationally, are engaged in re-imagining their public spaces through experimental urban planning. The exhibition will be on display from September 6, 2011 until January 6, 2012. Javier Arbona provided a critique of the exhibitions choice of images, words, and designs and asked "What does it say about their end goals? And where did they come up with this logo?"

Work Updates

Ganna Golosova, recently worked on a Master plan correction and Thomas C. Peluso, recently posted photos of an existing (historic) textile mill that will become future loft apartments.

BaBette Scheidt, just finished 1 of a series (a collaboration between Mindy Viamontes and Myself) of posters for the Chicago Women in Architecture organized, “architects.DOING OTHER THINGS” exhibition.

Discussion Threads

Due89 had a good day on September the 2nd, because he saw "for the first time, something I imagined become reality." Which led postal to remember his first time "such a bs little project but an enormous amount of gratification...." Miles Jaffe meanwhile
asked "now that that's out of the way, what would you do differently next time?"

spaceghost is looking for articles and examples for a little pet project of his which involves trying to cleanup a local pocket park in his neighborhood which sits unused in its current state as a patch of grass with a few trees. Phillip Crosby, suggested looking into the playgrounds that Aldo van Eyck designed for the city of Amsterdam starting in the 40s... Phillip posted that van Eyck designed "something like 700 of them over a period of about 30 years, with most of them being built in 'left-over' or 'in-between' spaces... this book about the playgrounds is out of print, but you can probably find it in a good architecture library"

victimeyes wondered if anyone else is not happy with how the MLK monument looks? Steven Ward argues "each generation gets monuments appropriate to its time?? so ours is well-intentioned, compromised, (de)value-engineered, and honors an idealized past instead of a possible future." merarch is glad "there's a place where people can go to memorialize MLK. That being said, the memorial itself is a bombastic pile of Chinese granite that looks like something out of a Communist Memorial Pattern Book, set amid a landscape that is a badly watered down version of the original concept." Additionally, TheMasterBuilder agrees that "MLK deserves a monument, and that it belongs on the Mall. But this looks so banal. He looks angry and hostile, and how about the fact that they carved it out of white stone?"  For his part jump thinks "the whole thing is fantastic, a monument to a great man in a nation that continues to struggle with race issues.  it's very existence is inspiring (seriously)." and that at the same time agrees that as an artwork "it is rather horrible...kim jong il was the first thing that crossed my mind as well."

Finally, theids wants to start a conversation about the Animal Architecture Awards. To theids, "this is not Animal Architecture. I feel that they have taken a term that was already being used to describe other projects and chose to just morph the term for their own use. I am referencing the book "Zoomorphic: Animal Architecture" which pre-dates this competition that has been hosted for 3 years. " der flaneur cautioned "Zoomorphic is an architecture book for 1st year students that want to see 'cool animal-looking buildings'...Im also suspicious of the winners, but I also think that designing another 'wildlife center for endangered birds that looks like a bird' isn't the best example of how buildings or architecture for that matter, can engage with nature and the un-natural."

theids responded "This "Animal Architecture" really is making me feel bitter I guess because it must be reminding me about all that is wrong with the profession of architecture, but also at the same time it is making me remember much that is right and honest and just about it as well." dudell sarcastically opined "I'm sure glad we have the world's brightest minds on the case. Let us know when you have all this figured out. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be trying new things and producing new ideas..." Yet, theM offered up a defense "The way I see it, Animal Architecture is taking a new perspective on how we can go about making those changes in the world and in our design process. In order to change our impact on the world, we first need to fundamentally change the way we think about and view the world, and the way we consider our relationship to the natural world."